The Tubes

The Best of the Tubes

A&M

The Tubes were always a bit of an enigma. An extremely visual band that almost missed out on the whole video revolution save for their biggest hit, "She¹s A Beauty." It makes one wonder how big they might have been if in their earlier days they had had MTV instead of FM radio. They now have a Best Of album as part of the 20th Century Masters collection that has featured acts as diverse as Buddy Holly, the Who, and the Ink Spots. The Tubes disc features the band in all of their post David Bowie glam glory. Classic tracks like "Mondo Bondage" and "White Punks on Dope," yet the bands two biggest hits, "Talk to Ya Later" and "She¹s A Beauty" are curiously missing. I suspect this has to do with the band. Recently on Behind The Music, Tubes frontman Fee Waybill acted as if the band¹s Top 40 hits were somehow beneath them now. If that is why those hits have been omitted from this otherwise impressive collection, than allow me to remind everyone of the Tubes' involvement in the Olivia Newton-John narcissistic epic Xanadu. (Isn¹t it about time they re-made Xanadu with Britney Spears and Tony Curtis?) Put that in your pomposity pipe and smoke it, and give us the Top 40 hits along with the album cuts.